The White House announced today that it would publicly release records of White House visitors each month. The announcement reflects the administration's settlement agreement in four Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) cases brought by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a legal advocacy organization that promotes ethics and accountability in government. CREW's press release is here; the NYT Caucus blog reports here.

CREW brought the cases after the Bush and Obama administrations declined to turn over White House visitor records in response to CREW's FOIA requests. The administrations claimed that the records were presidential records covered by the Presidential Records Act, not agency records covered by FOIA, and therefore remain under the legal custody and control of the White House and the Office of the Vice President.

For a photo of Justice Sotomayor (with Justice Ginsburg) on her first day on the bench, see SCOTUS BLOG here.

Forget judicial philosophy; enter the issue of judicial robes.

The Washington Post, in an article by Robert Barnes relating to changes and collegiality on the Court published today, reports on an interview with retired Justice O'Connor:

And O'Connor spoke of an age-old problem: what to wear. "I didn't know
anybody who made robes for women justices, and I think most of what was
available was something like a choir robe or an academic robe." She
ended up wearing a plain black one from her days as a judge in Arizona
-- and then was criticized for not wearing some sort of judicial collar
underneath it.

She recalled a note from someone who said she "looked like a washed-out justice."

The article continues:

Ginsburg showed off a lace collar she said was from South Africa.
"You know, the standard robe is made for a man because it has a place
for the shirt to show, and the tie," Ginsburg said. "So Sandra Day
O'Connor and I thought it would be appropriate if we included as part
of our robe something typical of a woman. So I have many, many
collars."

Although the attention for women justices may seem excessive, male judges also have choices in terms of their judicial attire. Justice Rehnquist adopted wearing stripes on his judicial robe.

Moreover, as in other types of clothing, there are levels of luxury. It seems, if one is to believe an article from several months ago by Erika Lovely, that there is a "Lamborghini of judicial gowns," a custom-made J-71 by the Bentley and Simon company in Virginia. Justice Alito wears one, reportedly with silk sleeves, a gift from his alma mater. And it seems that now-Justice Sotomayor already has one, purchased when she was appointed to the Second Circuit.

So although the judicial robe, like other uniforms, is supposed to shift attention away from the individual in favor of the "office" the uniform conveys, there is still much attention on the person. And perhaps this attention is magnified when the person in question is the third woman and first Latina/o on the highest court of the United States?

The Washington Post, amongst others, is reporting speculations concerning the retirement of the Court's oldest Justice, John Paul Stevens:

It is tea-leaf reading time at the Supreme Court: Does Justice John
Paul Stevens's decision to hire only one clerk for the term that begins
in October 2010 mean this could be his last year on the court?

The case is perhaps most notable as the oldest of the pending Guantanamo habeas cases. Al Odah filed his habeas petition on May 1, 2002, over six years before the Supreme Court ruled in Boumediene v. Bush that the privilege of habeas extended to detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

Consistent with the plurality's ruling in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, Judge Kollar-Kotelly granted the parties' motion to rely on hearsay evidence, but denied the government's motion "to have its evidence admitted with a presumption of accuracy and authenticity." And consistent with Judge Bates's ruling earlier this year, she partially adopted the government's definition of its detention authority, ruling out that portion of its proffered definition that would have allowed it to detain individuals who only "substantially supported" enemy forces or have "directly supported hostilities" in aid of enemy forces.

From the Conclusion:

Upon consideration of the entire record, the Government has submitted evidence showing that some individuals traveled to Afghanistan using the same route as Al Odah and that they were traveling to Al Farouq; that AK-47 training was an early part of the Al Farouq training program; that Al Farouq was evacuated shortly after September 11, 2001, when trainees were sent north toward Kabul, Jalalabad, or the Tora Bora mountains; and that the individual who transported Al Odah from the Afghnistan-Pakistan border to a camp outside of Kandahar was likely a trainer at Al Farouq. Through Al Odah's admissions, the Government has also submitted evidence that Al Odah was brought to a camp outside of Kandahar (where Al Farouq was located) on or around September 10, 2001; that he received on day of training on an AK-47; that he was shortly thereafter evacuated and directed to travel north to Logar (a province just south of Kabul); and that he eventually traveled to Jalabad and the Tora Bora mountains. In contrast, Al Odah has identified evidence in the record suggesting that the description Al Odah provided to an interrogator of the camp that he visited did not match the physical description of Al Farouq. After weighing all of the evidence in the record, the Court finds that the camp to which Al Odah was transported by [redacted] was more likely than not Al Farouq. When this evidence is considered in the context of Al Odah's travel north at the direction of [redacted], and Al Odah's subsequent activities described above, the Court finds that it is more likely than not that Al Odah became part of the forces of the Taliban and al Qaeda.